Alibaba Group reported second-quarter revenues up 28 percent year-on-year to CNY 20.25 billion (USD 3.27 billion). The company saw the amount of merchandise sold on its Chinese e-commerce platforms grow by 34 percent year-on-year and 12 percent compared to the first quarter to CNY 673 billion. Purchases over mobile devices grew even faster, more than doubling compared to the same period of 2014 to a value of CNY 371 billion. Monthly active users of its sites were up 63 percent year-on-year to 307 million, and the number of active buyers in the past 12 months rose 32 percent to 367 million.
The company increased adjusted EBITDA 23 percent year-on-year to CNY 10.59 billion, while the margin fell to 52 percent from 54 percent a year ago. Alibaba blamed the lower margin on the integration of acquisitions such as AutoNavi and UCWeb as well as development costs for new businesses such as a mobile operating system, OTT TV services and local services. Operating profit was down 25 percent to CNY 5.16 billion due to the costs of stock options. Alibaba said that excluding the cost of stock-based compensation, its operating profit would have increased 16 percent in the period.
Net profit still more than doubled, to CNY 30.82 billion from CNY 12.44 billion a year ago, due to a one-time gain of CNY 24.73 billion from spinning off its films business Alibaba Pictures. Alibaba increased capital investment to CNY 1.79 billion in the quarter, while free cash flow fell 10 percent year-on-year to CNY 10.59 billion.
Looking ahead, Alibaba said it will continue to focus on "winning in mobile". In the past quarter, mobile passed 50 percent of its retail revenue in China already. It will also continue to expand outside China and invest in its cloud computing business. In the past quarter, the international retail activities contributed CNY 501 million in revenue, up 40 percent from a year earlier. Growth slowed though compared to the first quarter, hurt by currency fluctuations in key markets such as Russia and Brazil. The cloud computing business contributed CNY 485 million in revenue, more than double the CNY 236 million a year ago.
